


Finding the way to the road

by oddishly



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:12:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6713722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddishly/pseuds/oddishly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad misses Nate. It's distracting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the way to the road

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to queerly-it-is for reading this over and telling me it worked when I was flailing around <3 Kinda unsure about this one but let's get it out there.

Brad lands in Iraq for the second time in the early afternoon. He steps out of the helicopter into the desert, 110 degrees and climbing, and sets off in search of his vehicle, his men and the new lieutenant, finds them all in mostly-perfect condition and fixes up what he can of the rest. 

He doesn’t miss home but he misses Nate already. It’s distracting.

 

*

 

Brad will be gone a year, and they’ve gone longer on opposite sides of the same country, but that was before the first time Brad knew the arch of Nate’s back when he was drunk and desperate on the verge of coming, vocal with tequila and louder the next morning when he pushed Brad onto his back and sank onto his cock, fucking himself slowly awake while Brad stared.

He slid his hands up Nate’s sides. “Didn’t know you were so chatty in bed.”

“Why would you?” said Nate, eyes closed. “You think I can’t hold it in for a combat jack?”

Brad stuttered thinking about it. Nate’s mouth curved. “Perhaps not. Shame you were never outside the Humvee when I--”

Brad’s mind flooded with images and he reached up to close his palm over Nate’s mouth. “Can’t let you finish that sentence, sir,” he said, thrusting up, watching for Nate’s reaction, and without thinking better of it, took his hand away and continued, “besides, a Humvee hardly counts as a bed.”

“Your grave was always too far away.”

“Ray might’ve noticed if you’d done this when he was sleeping next to me. And Hasser. Trombley. Same problem.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Nate after a moment, all kinds of not giving a shit who watched them there in his voice. Brad gave up trying and moaned.

 

*

 

The new lieutenant arrived in Iraq before Brad and the rest of the platoon and he’s unfamiliar to most of the men, but Brad had gotten to know him a little before leaving. He’s older, good at his job, and has a way of keeping the new and decidedly not good at his job CO out of the way. “Lieutenant Grayson.”

“Sergeant,” says Grayson. He’s peering into the command vehicle, hands covered in engine grease. “Good to be back?”

Brad considers. “You’d think that after being one of the two northernmost invading US Marines for the duration of my first tour, I’d be frustrated.”

“And are you?”

“I am not. This time, I came prepared.”

Grayson leans on the doorframe, looking intrigued. “With what?”

“Hindsight, sir. Last time I trusted that the United States government would supply me with basic survival equipment.” Brad lowers his voice conspiratorially. “This time, I have a contact at FedEx.”

The lieutenant’s mouth twitches. “Very wise, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir. I try not to make the same mistakes twice in the same warzone.” 

He lets himself get distracted by the sight of the red-haired RTO crawling out from under Brad’s ride for the next year, and when he turns back from his victor, Grayson is gone. 

Brad spends a fleeting second thinking about Nate, knowing he’s not going to appear from the other side of the vehicle or catch his eye over the heads of new Marines and picturing it anyway. Then he puts Nate out of his head, because he’s got a year to wish he was here and there’s no point using up his best material all at once, no matter how much he wants to.

 

*

 

After the tequila, the sex, more sex to prove it wasn’t just because they were drunk, Brad flew back to California. 

He emailed Nate three times in a week, smirked at the replies, and some time later, to his endless regret, answered the phone way too fucking late in the night with a drunk and smiling, “Nate.”

“You gotta get yourself caller ID, Iceman,” said Ray. Brad groaned.

“I’m drinking. You’re interrupting. What do you want?”

“I’m out, motherfucker! Joshua Ray Person, card-carrying civilian, zero military affiliations as of yesterday, I’m high as fucking David Bowie, I’m the spaceman. This morning I took out a subscription to Army Magazine because it’ll be funny to see what they get up to.”

“That is the Marine Corp’s loss,” said Brad, very sincerely, and started maneuvering his way to the back of the bar. “Meaning mine, no one else knows how to change a tire in this company, it’s fucking embarrassing.”

“I’ll send tires to every city you win when you’re back in Hajji country,” promised Ray, which wasn’t the point, but Brad appreciated the sentiment. “Why would the LT be calling you?”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I’m your number one pal, though, I’m your man! The LT’s just another sorry ex-Marine--”

“At Harvard,” said Brad, even though it was a bad idea to talk about Nate to anyone. “And he’s a Captain.”

“A smart as fuck, probably gonna be President one day, quit two weeks after his promotion, sorry ex-Marine. I’d turn ‘em down if they asked me.”

Ray started in on a rant about the kind of liberal dicksucks Harvard churned out. Brad leaned against a wall to enjoy it, and when he hung up in favor of less talking, more drinking, sent a text to Nate that said _I think Ray’s proud of you._

He woke up the next day to a hangover and an email.

\---------- Forwarded message ----------  
From: **Ray Person**  
To: **Nate Fick**  
Subject: URGENT devil dog committee meeting

LT, I was reading my copy of the Hufflefuck Post over my iced soy latte in Starbucks this morning and I find myself concerned as fuck about the impact of corporate pseudo-diversity on minority trust fund kids at Harvard. As a major league equalist, humanist, and feminist, I believe this urgent matter needs attending to with no less rigour than that time we invaded Iraq to find Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. I’ve reached out to some devil dogs for support and I anticipate [...]

 

*

 

He emails Nate from the only working computer in Baghdad when everyone else is busy reading letters from home. Nate doesn't need Brad to give him a weather report but it’s that or the scenery to make him feel less pathetic than counting down months. Brad doesn't have anything less incriminating to say than _Iraq is too fucking hot._

 _Raining here,_ comes the immediate response, followed by, _You’d hate it_.

Brad doesn’t have much to say to that. He probably would, weather gets in the way of everything. No one in California knows how to drive when the streets are wet and it’s hard to picture Boston when all he’s really seen of it is the inside of Nate’s bedroom.

_Perfect weather in San Diego_ is what he settles on. 

_Of course. Tell me something I don't know._

_My surfboard’s not doing anything, go learn how to use it._ Brad pictures Nate in a wetsuit. _I told you where the key to my house is. Stay off the bike, though._

_Why not your bike?_

_Because you’d crash it. I like my bike._

_Fuck you,_ comes Nate’s response, the last one before Brad is called away, still smiling.

 

*

 

Back home, on the wrong side of the country, Brad started waking up earlier, increased the distance and difficulty of his morning runs, took his bike apart and put it back together to go faster for longer, and when none of that worked to refocus his attention, returned from surfing long after dark one night to the phone ringing.

“I’ve got to speak at an event in LA,” said Nate, as soon as Brad answered. “This weekend, the original speaker had some kind of family emergency. I’m flying back Monday morning.”

Brad grinned. “Want to come down here?”

“They need me at the event Saturday and Sunday. But--”

“Where are you staying?” Brad paused. “I’ll book a room.”

“The Marriott,” said Nate, then, lightly, “share mine.”

Friday evening, Brad arrived at the hotel with a long hour still to go before Nate was due to land at LAX, grimaced at the hockey fans spilling past, and headed for the hotel bar. 

Waiting was familiar; nerves weren’t. He leaned on the bar.

“Brad?”

Brad turned in surprise. Nate was standing behind him with a rucksack swung over his shoulder and a laptop bag in hand, back straight, hair longer than last time, expression warm. 

Pleasure flooded through Brad’s body. “You’re early.”

“I tipped the pilot. He took the fast route.”

“For a 6-hour flight? You couldn’t give the pilot a twenty in the 3 days coming back from Iraq?”

“Less incentive.”

Brad had never regretted an audience more. Next time he’d think ahead.

He stood, thought about pushing Nate against a wall and holding him to it, jerking him off right there in the bar, businessmen or no businessmen; shoving him onto his back over a table and keeping him down with a hand on his chest, letting Nate fuck his mouth in the late afternoon sun.

Nate took a step. Brad tried not to sway closer. 

“Is there a reason we’re still surrounded by people?” Nate asked.

“Drink?”

“You’re joking.”

Brad kept a straight face as he indicated the bar.

“No,” said Nate. His eyes darkened. “I want to fuck.”

No one was close enough to hear him except for the bartender, who was talking on the phone. Brad felt his face heat anyway, watching Nate look from his eyes to his mouth and down the length of his body. “Copy that, sir,” he said, voice rough, and turned to the door.

 

*

 

Brad leads his men through a series of towns and out the other side, nearly loses a man to an utterly avoidable fuck-up that reminds him of the Al Muwaffiqiyah bridge, talks another sergeant down from the kind of ledge that ends in court martial, and doesn’t get the chance to dream. 

Every klick north brings fewer waving children and more night missions. Brad sees the officers’ faces pale in briefings and tries to find ways to mitigate the fuckery before he’s told the details, notes the shadows under his men’s eyes and sleeps less, momentarily forgets himself and wishes Ray was here when the red-haired RTO forgets the words to Oops I Did It Again, and once finds himself waking up flat on his back to the faces of three Marines whose names he can’t remember and no idea why he’s looking at them.

“Sergeant Colbert,” says the one on the left with a degree of relief. “Hey Doc, he’s awake!”

Brad tunes out the rest, no point wasting energy wondering who these three are, and focuses on whatever the fuck is blazing fire up the inside of his chest.

In his grave later, unable to sleep with his ribs still on fire, Brad tries to distract himself thinking about anywhere but here, gets stuck wondering instead how long it would take Nate to find out if Brad didn’t come back from the war. If he’d hear it from official channels or in passing from any of the men who didn’t know that they’d even thought of each other after they were supposed to be done with Iraq the first time, and how he’d have to respond when he was told.

He emails Nate again as soon as he’s able, with nameless descriptions of the men to make him laugh, confirmations that the desert still exists and that two nervous translators aren’t much more helpful than Meesh was on his own. 

He hesitates before typing out a passing mention of the last time he was in LA and the time before on the east coast. Brad doesn’t usually do just in case, but a lot of things have changed for him, lately.

 

*

 

They nearly saw each other again, and Brad stuck Nate’s flight details to his fridge and cleaned the studio apartment his retail agent picked out for him twice before Nate’s symposium at UCSD was postponed to two weeks after Brad was deployed again and a presentation moved up to take its place in Boston. 

“Nate,” said Brad after a short, glum conversation about it on the phone. “We need to talk about something.”

“Okay,” said Nate evenly.

“I wasn’t going to bring this up--”

“Brad--”

“--but it sounds to me like the US educational industrial complex is trying harder to cockblock you than the Marine Corps did. I was under the impression that lefty practices like getting all the gay sex you wanted were the sort of thing you resigned your commission in favor of.”

There was a long pause. Then Nate said, “If you get yourself killed, you’ll be making it a fuckload harder for me to get all the gay sex I wanted, and was expecting this weekend, and that’ll be on you, Sergeant.”

Brad laughed.

He spent a long three days on his bike instead of fucking Nate through whatever wall appealed most at the time, and stopped at a gas station somewhere east of Flagstaff, Arizona to send a postcard of the desert to him. He read the detail on the back about Sun Valley and the Petrified Forest nearby and thought about things to write, and decided very quickly that it would be wisest to write nothing at all.

“Couldn’t wait to get back to the desert, you had to spend the remainder of your free time gearing up for it,” said Nate on the phone the next time they spoke, the night before Brad shipped out. “Is this a picture of you on the front, by the way?”

“I’m offended you have to ask. That’s a perfectly anatomically correct stick figure you’re looking at.”

“Mostly. You missed one key detail. Quite an important one, in fact.”

“Got to leave something to the imagination.”

“You can rest assured that I’ve imagined,” said Nate. His voice changed. “Though it’s even better in person.”

Brad raised his eyebrows. “My dick misses you, too.”

Nate laughed. Brad could count on one hand the times he’d ever heard Nate laugh. “Come and see me again when you’re back?”

It was 2 a.m. in Boston and Brad was going back to war without him. This wasn’t the time to talk about anything more important than the duration of the flight and the quality of the food once he got there, but neither of them really did half measures. Brad didn’t temper his tone when he said, “Yeah,” and “I’ll come,” and trusted that Nate would understand.

 

*

 

Brad leaves every briefing with the Captain reminding himself that Schwetje was worse. A way outside of Fallujah, Lieutenant Grayson calls his men together immediately after the briefing to translate everything the Captain’s just said into something they can use, finishing with, “Anything to add, Sergeant Colbert?”

Brad appreciates the display of faith but they’ve been here a long time now and he’s still disoriented, unused to wanting something different, worried that it's affecting his judgement even when Grayson makes a point of agreeing with him on one tactical point after another.

He pushes it when they’re alone in the early evening. It’s one of the only things Brad doesn’t like about him. Some things only need to be said once and Brad already knows he’s good at his job. “Thank you, sir.”

The LT gives him an assessing look. “Feeling frustrated?”

Brad spends a moment considering, looking out over the city they were supposed to have liberated long ago. He decides to be honest, because Grayson’s faults do not include gossiping. “Homesick.”

They watch the sun set over the city in agreeable silence, Marines setting up camp below: the indefatigable whistling corporal and a chipper and evidently lost Berkeley graduate who Brad badly wants to introduce to Poke cutting through the noise of the rest. 

Grayson turns as the city lights up again and says, “Returning is always difficult,” managing to make it sound understanding instead of a platitude. Brad wonders what he’d say if he told him that it’s not the returning but the absence of one Nate Fick that’s the problem, even thinks about making some oblique commentary about things changing and staying the same, but then he looks over and decides he’d be doing him a disservice to say it.

Before he’s come up with a suitable reply, Grayson continues. “I greatly value your presence here. All bullshit from command aside, you’re an outstanding Team Leader and I’m glad to have you.”

Brad swallows a mortifying flare of misdirected longing. He says, too late, “That’s what I’m here for, sir,” but Grayson is already sliding down the sandbank, and misses it.

 

*

 

Coming home is an immediate anti-climax. Brad spends two days reacquainting himself with his apartment, his surfboard, his bike, what a full night’s sleep and being clean feels like, and decides to visit Nate without really thinking about it. No one is there to tell him to do otherwise and Brad's not sure of an alternative now that California hasn't fixed feeling lonely without him.

He texts Nate just before boarding the plane. _Changed your address recently?_

 _Negative_ , says Nate in reply, then, _What are you sending?_

 _You’ll like it_ , says Brad, and turns his phone off to avoid the temptation to tell him anything more. 

He sleeps on the plane, still catching up, comforted by having a sense of purpose and the droning noise of the engine, and when he lands the cab gets him there before the sun has fully set.

Brad looks down the leafy street and then up at the top row of windows in the apartment building. He has no idea where Nate usually is at this time of day, if he's even going to be there when Brad gets inside the building. 

He follows a woman inside and takes the stairs up two at a time.

Nate opens the door before Brad even gets the chance to knock.

“You fucker,” he says. “I knew it was you.” 

Brad takes a breath. He steps in close, pushes Nate gently inside with a hand on his chest and slams the door shut behind them. Then he stills, searching Nate’s face.

“Brad,” says Nate, and reaches to pull Brad’s head down. His hand stays curved around the base of Brad’s skull as they kiss, clenching the fingers of the other in Brad’s shirt between them. They stumble through the room until Nate’s back hits a wall and he groans into Brad’s mouth, holding Brad where he is and kissing him harder.

Nate draws back just as Brad decides he doesn’t need air anymore.

“Did I forget how to kiss?” Brad asks when Nate stares at him without saying anything. “It’s only been a year.”

“Only a year,” Nate mutters. He presses their mouths together, hard and brief, then pulls away. “Felt like three.”

His face shows worry and disbelief and happiness all at once, hands roaming over Brad like he can’t decide what to touch first. Brad wants to know everything Nate thought about while he was gone, kisses him again and never wants to stop. 

“Bedroom’s behind you,” says Nate against his mouth. Brad can’t pull him close enough. He drags them both into the bedroom without letting go.

On his back a long while later, clothes strewn around them on the floor, evening light filtering through the window, Nate keeps his hand light on the curve of Brad’s head and says, “Christ, I missed you,” when Brad swallows around his cock.

Brad hmms in agreement as he comes back up, tongues at the tip and comes off all the way, replacing his mouth with his fist. He looks up the line of Nate’s body to watch him and smirks when Nate catches his eye. There’s exasperation and something else warm in his face that Brad wants to get to know, now they have time. He doesn’t have a return flight to California yet. Brad could spend a long time here, working it out.

Nate moves the hand on Brad’s head to rub his thumb across Brad’s cheek. “You still with me, Sergeant?”

Brad grins at him. “I missed you, too,” he says. He watches Nate’s face change again, bright look in his eyes that Brad thinks he will get to see more of.

Then he gets his mouth back on him, going down slowly and enjoying it when Nate groans his name. First things first.


End file.
